Recent budget cuts have forced ASU’s nursing school to cut enrollment numbers, an action that has made the school more competitive and has led some nursing students to consider community college.
In 2008, U.S. News and World Report ranked ASU’s College of Nursing and Health Innovation in the top 8 percent in the nation for nursing graduate schools.
However, due to University budget cuts in 2009, ASU was forced to cut many of its faculty members and in turn cut student enrollment in half, causing nursing students going into upper division classes to face heavy competition among their peers, according to the college’s website.
Due to this competition, some students are looking elsewhere to get their nursing degrees.
Junior Kylie Sussman switched from a degree in nursing to a degree in health and science after discovering how difficult the program was to get into.
She plans on getting her associate degree in nursing at Mesa Community College so she can still fulfill her dream of becoming a nurse. However, it will take awhile for her dream to become a reality.
“The wait list to get into the nursing program at MCC is about two years,” Sussman said. “The program will take two years to complete, so it will be another four years until I can become a registered nurse.”
Another former ASU student, Malaika Pitts, is currently on the waiting list for the program at Mesa Community College, but she feels the wait is well worth it.
“Getting an associate degree at MCC is going to be a lot more hands-on than getting one at ASU,” Pitts said. “The wait is long, but at least I know for sure I’ll be accepted.”
According to its website, MCC accepts all applicants into the nursing program as long as they meet admission requirements. The estimated wait of acceptance is about three to four semesters, and upon completion students can take the NCLEX-RN exam to become a registered nurse in the state of Arizona.
Students in the MCC nursing school can also sign up for a three-year program called the RN-BSN Pathway, which will give them an associate degree that will guarantee them acceptance into ASU’s upper division nursing program.
However, Sussman and Pitts will just go through the general program so they can avoid the two additional years that the Pathway program adds, and it’s not necessary to have a bachelor’s degree as a nurse.
In order to receive bachelor’s degree in nursing at ASU, students must first take two years of prerequisite classes. Upon completion, they apply to the upper division portion of the nursing program.
Applications consist of a variety of things. The applicants must take the TEAS exam, which tests them on their knowledge of math, science and reading comprehension. That score is then added to their GPA, and the final score determines their ranking.
The top-ranked students are then given a faculty interview, and only half of those students go on to be accepted into the program.
Last spring, 216 people applied to the program. Of those, only 80 of them advanced. The average GPA of those accepted was a near perfect 3.976.
“There is just not enough faculty [in the upper division program] out there to teach the students, and state law requires only a certain amount of students per faculty member,” said Terry Olbrysh, spokesman for the College of Nursing and Health Innovation.
Typically there are only about eight to 10 students per clinical faculty member because upper division students treat actual patients, and it is necessary for them to have one-on-one instruction.
Money is also an issue when it comes to admitting more students.
“We can’t accept everybody because it is very expensive to teach nursing and medical students because of the high price for medical equipment and the cost of treating actual patients,” says Olbrysh.
Reach the reporter at Danielle.legler@asu.edu
